Or Satellites And Lonely Moons
by SomehowSundown
Summary: "Penny for your thoughts?" he prompts, the tilt of his head and lilt of his voice reassuring, and she's confused once more. She's leaping from moment to moment in dizzying succession, like twirling with the current of time. Missing scene from "Genesis".


**Title: **Or Satellites And Lonely Moons

**Author: **SomehowSundown

**Rating: **T

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing. The title is borrowed from Jason Reeves' song "Entwined".

**Fandom: **Terra Nova

**Characters / Pairing: **Maddy, Reynolds, mentions of Zoe.

**Spoilers: **Spoilers for the Season 1 episode "Genesis".

**Summary: **"Penny for your thoughts?" he prompts, the tilt of his head and lilt of his voice reassuring, and she's confused once more. She's leaping from moment to moment in dizzying succession, like twirling with the current of time until she falls. Maddy's thoughts during "Genesis" as she convinces Reynolds to stay.

**Word Count: **2,402

**Author's Note: **This story started as a missing scene from "Genesis". Maddy is shown asking Reynolds to stay, and she isn't seen for the rest of the episode. It's labeled as Maddy / Reynolds, but, like many of their scenes thus far, it's up to your interpretation. At it's core, this story is hurt/comfort. In my mind, Maddy asked him to stay for more than just the chance to be around him. Her family was put in serious danger, and for that I saw fit to give her Reynolds as a confidant.

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><p><em>Or Satellites And Lonely Moons<em>

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><p>"Don't go?" The words roll off her tongue before she can stop herself, urgent and pleading to hang unsteady in the air between them. The rush of her query propels her half a step forward. She spares a moment to curse her lack of composure; for all the careful calculations she's spent her life making, the mechanics of how her mouth continually beats her brain to the chase escape her.<p>

She surprised when he turns around and thinks, judging by the way he spins mid-step and averts his eyes quickly after, that maybe he is too.

"Uh," she starts, shaking her head. She hadn't planned this far ahead. She blanches at that, resisting the urge to scoff; she hadn't planned this at all. "Zoe's scared." It's not a great excuse, not even a good one, and the thought makes her nose scrunch, but it's the best she can come up with now that she has him here. She swallows and bounces on her toes, trying to steady herself, to calm her nerves. Rationalization. Finding reasons. Focus. These are things she's good at.

"Right, Zo?" she prompts, following his gaze and wrapping an arm around her sister to drag her closer. Zoe probably is scared, she muses, rubbing the younger girl's shoulder in what she hopes looks like a comforting gesture. Why wouldn't she be? Her brother is off somewhere beyond the gates of this unfamiliar place with people she doesn't know, possibly under attack by gigantic carnivorous animals that aren't herbivores and don't have to supplement their diets with smaller reptiles because they eat reptiles to begin with. The incisors on those dinosaurs must be huge. And, her parents essentially left them alone with no way to contact them.

The words "haven't heard from the search team" ring loudly in her ears.

Yes, she concludes. Maddy wouldn't blame Zoe for being scared. She wouldn't blame her at all.

She gives her head another toss, as if the minute action will get her mind back on track. Damage control, she reflects. If she can sell herself on this, maybe she can sell him on it too. She squeezes Zoe's shoulder, grounding herself, and looks up in time to see him smile at the small display of affection.

Her breath catches when he raises his eyes to meet hers. They narrow with just the slightest hint of suspicion and the smile melts into a look of casual normalcy. His features are carefully schooled and bracing herself, she recognizes this for what it is – a test. He's studying her. She can see the soldier in him now; analyzing the subject, assessing the situation, attempting to see through her haphazard façade. She shivers under the intense stare. She's not used to this, being so nervous, so out of her element, and the sensation sits uneasy in her stomach.

She isn't sure what he sees but knows she's passed when his posture relaxes a fraction and he peers down at Zoe, still forcibly plastered to her side. The charming grin, and at this she reminds herself to _stop staring_, returns. She breathes again.

"We'll we can't have that, can we," he declares quietly, stepping into the room and striding to where her and her sister stand. He bends down, level with Zoe, and places his hands, much bigger than the two she wrings uncomfortably in front of her, on either side of the little girl's shoulders. She wonders what those hands would feel like entwined with her own, her cheeks coloring with the thought. She's grateful he can't see her face from his position on the floor.

"It's okay," he starts, voice low and soothing, "we'll be brave together." He leans forward and bumps his forehead lightly against Zoe's, and the action is rewarded with a giggle. He gives her some explanation about the radio attached to his belt, assuring her that if anything bad were to happen, he'd know. Maddy leaves the two to their embrace, walking over to the door and easing it shut. She leans her own forehead against the metal, sighing at the cool caress.

Boys and worrying, she groans. She hasn't ever had much luck dealing with either.

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><p>Two hours later, and she's gone through the whole routine at least twice – the pacing, the tugging incessantly at her hair, the drumming of her fingers on the kitchen counter. None of it eases her fears, calms her nerves. The endless waiting, her unexpected houseguest, all of it has her on edge.<p>

She's barely refrained from biting her nails, she considers, grateful for the moment that her hands are occupied. Zoe, exhausted from the day's events dozes in her lap, soft hair parting as Maddy gently cards her fingers through the strands. Her mother used to do this with her when she woke from a nightmare, screaming and begging for the return of her illegal sibling. She closes her eyes tightly at the thought of their troubled past, a hundred trillion sunrises and sunsets behind or before them, she can't quite grasp which, tightening her grip around her sleeping sister. She breathes deep, slow even breaths, in and out and in again.

"Okay over there?" comes the gentle voice to her left, pulling her out of her inner musings. Her eyes fly open and quickly locate the source of the question. He's still perched on the stool at the table, dutifully keeping watch over the youngest members of the Shannon family, their own personal guardian against the night. He'd been so patient with Zoe, playing together with her dinosaurs until she could scarcely keep her eyes open. Maddy sighs, flattered, frustrated, flustered. She can solve any equation, pick apart any problem until it's solved, unravel any mystery until she holds each string yielding in her hands.

But not him.

He's as strange to her as the fresh, clean air, the haunting, lonely moon.

It's a game, that much she can work out for herself. Some would call it a dance, but not her; there's strategy here, even if she has yet to master it. He starts, on the offensive, the white knight, and she's on unsteady ground, grasping at smoke. When she manages to right herself, find her footing, she tries her hand. He's faster than she is, quick, agile, adaptable, and with a look or a question, she's on the defensive all over again.

He moves, she moves, and so it goes.

She looks down to Zoe again, and remembers his inquiry.

"Yeah," she breathes out, defeated. "You know, considering," she adds, echoing the sentiment with none of the confidence or truth it contained earlier in the evening. She huffs out another breath, dissatisfied with her inability to lie. She's not fooling herself; she's certainly not fooling him.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he prompts, the tilt of his head and lilt of his voice reassuring, and she's confused once more. She's leaping from moment to moment in dizzying succession, like twirling with the current of time until she falls; she's unsure, she's steady, he's unfamiliar, he's comforting. His smile's disarming, arresting. Dangerous. He threatens every one of her carefully composed notions.

She isn't any good with danger, she muses.

"Just thinking," she supplies, cautious, calculated, testing the water as he'd tested her. She waits until she can wait no more. "About Zoe," she amends, unsettled. She slides her fingers through her sister's dark hair once more. If she looked at her life logically, she'd see that most of it revolved around Zoe. Hiding away from population control, always watching her steps, looking over her shoulder. Fighting to keep their family together, watching it dissolve before her eyes, holding her mother as she cried. Plotting and planning to get their family back. To be whole.

And the worrying. The constant, never ending worrying.

Sometimes she wonders if she's anything more than the ability to worry uncontrollably.

"And mom," she adds. "And dad," she continues. "Josh too. About all of them." She realizes she's starting to ramble, but around him, she can't seem to help herself. She would climb to her feet and pace if not for the solid, reassuring weight of Zoe in her lap. The thought forces the beginning of a watery smile, and for the countless time that night, she laments her lack of control.

"Zoe was a third child," she confesses. He's either already worked this out for himself or is incredibly adept at deception. His features betray nothing, and she's unsure how to proceed until he speaks.

"And a family is four," he reiterates the phrase she's seen plastered on countless billboards with something like understanding. The silence is too thick, too heavy, pressing against her like a tangible force, and she grows heavy with it.

Zoe stirs where she sleeps, settling once more after an uneasy moment.

"They took my family away because of it," she chokes out through the lump forming in her throat. She doesn't want to imagine a world without this, without her sitting here, eyes closed, knowing that when her lids slid open Zoe would be there, sleeping peacefully in her lap, knowing their parents and their brother would return home after another ordinary day.

But she knows one exists. She's lived it.

"I," she starts, much too vulnerable for her liking, searching for the right words, "I can't lose them. Not again." And that there, is the crux, the root, the beginning, the end. The sum total of all her fears, her insecurities, her doubts. Her family's been ripped apart before and history, she knows, has a way of repeating itself.

She's powerless to stop it, she's long ago realized, and perhaps that scares her the most.

The hand cupping her cheek startles her out of her reverie. She hadn't seen him move, hadn't heard his steps, but he's a soldier, she reminds herself; quick, agile, adaptable. A gentle pressure and the warm weight of fingers against her chin force her gaze to his. She tries to look away, to glance anywhere but those knowing eyes, but his grip is firm.

"It's okay to be scared," she hears him say through the rush of blood in her ears, the thump of her heart against her chest; the ring of "haven't heard from the search team" still present. "But Terra Nova's a new beginning. You can be a family here. You will be a family here," he finishes with a calmness she hasn't felt since she opened the door to see him standing there. She envies his poise and lets out a weak whimper at the admission.

She wants to scream, to cry, to tell him he's wrong – how can they be a family when her brother might be injured or, if she dares to think it, worse; when her parents are out there and might not come back, might not come home? And yet she wants so desperately to believe him, to sink into the warmth and comfort of those words until she's surrounded and safe and sound.

Maddy knows she's teetering on some edge, not sure of which way but knowing that she'll fall.

Her thoughts are interrupted by the crackle of his radio. It's mostly static but her eyes fly up to his in unrestrained anticipation.

He grips her chin a fraction tighter, sending an effortless smile her way, and she wonders how he can be so composed in the face of the situation they've found themselves in. "I'll be right back," he assures her, already fiddling with the device as he strides into the next room. She curls in on herself, leaning down to rest her forehead on Zoe's arm, shielding them both from the unforgiving world, shutting her eyes as if her troubles would melt into the blackness and fade away into nothing.

He isn't gone long. She's grateful, she hasn't the patience for waiting. Her head snaps up at the sound of his approaching footsteps and she steels herself, preparing for the worst.

"Was that them?" she starts, anxious. She's been flooded with too many emotions tonight, she thinks, and there isn't room in her for all of them. "Are they okay? Did they find Josh? What about my parents?" The questions come quickly and the effort leaves her breathless. She squeezes Zoe's arm lightly, not sure if it's to soothe the sleeping child or herself.

"The search team's on their way back," he starts. "Your brother's with them. Your parents too. One of his friends was hurt pretty badly, but everyone's mostly okay." His explanation is brief, but she's heard enough. She doesn't allow herself time to consider, time to calculate, time to plan or to think or to reconsider before she's reaching up and winding her arms around his neck, pulling him down to rest her head on his shoulder. The sigh she breathes out is tinged with relief, and hope.

He relaxes into the embrace, letting her take what she needs for a moment until he starts to pull away, too quickly for her liking.

"I should probably get down there," he suggests, untangling himself and reaching up a hand to rub at the back of his neck in what she realizes is a nervous gesture. The attention makes her smile; she isn't the only one affected. "Will you and your sister be okay?" he asks, and her heart warms at his concern.

"Yeah," she says, and means it this time. "We'll be okay. Thanks. Really. You didn't have to. Stay with us, I mean. The whole time." Her own nervousness has made a prompt and unwelcome return, and she shakes her head at the thought.

He gives her a polite nod and spares a glance for the girl still situated in her lap before turning away.

She sighs again, and decides she's done enough thinking for the night. She's slipping from beneath Zoe and heading for the door, choosing not to stop herself.

"Wait!" she starts, stepping towards him, the night, the future. He's already a few steps down the street, but pauses, turns, surprised. She's almost overwhelmed with a sense of déjà vu, but brushes it aside.

"I," she continues, bashful and blushing, "I don't even know your first name." Boys and worrying, she reminds herself. Still not much luck dealing with either.

His laugh is quiet, but pleasant.

"Mark," he says, his smile bright, like a promise, "my name is Mark."

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><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>I tried to balance my portrayal of Maddy with what I'd seen from her in this episode, and what I think takes places "behind the scenes". I imagine she hasn't had the easiest life and, given her history, I think the fear of losing her family, of being separated again, is a real issue for her. I also wasn't sure what actually happened with Zoe after her father was taken away, if she too was taken away or if she was left with the family, so I left it up to reader interpretation. The mentions of trying to piece the family back together can apply to both Jim and Maddy, whichever you see fit.

Thanks for reading!


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